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COVER STORY: With God As My Alibi
The disengagement debate and the call by rabbis for soldiers to refuse orders to evacuate settlements have been framed as a choice between God and country. But Orthodox soldiers see the issues as far more subtle and complex. Politics, not a halakhic ruling, they say, will be the decisive factor guiding their behavior on the ground. More...

�Getting involved in talks with Syria would help Israel�
In early September, Syrian President Bashar al-Asad invited Martin Indyk, former U.S. ambassador to Israel and assistant secretary of state during the Clinton administration, to meet him in Damascus. More...

The Back Page with Pinhas Shifman: �It�s Religious Marriage That Creates Illegitimacy�
In early June, former chief rabbi Eliahu Bakshi-Doron stunned a rabbinic conclave and the public by declaring that he favors ending the Orthodox state rabbinate�s sole jurisdiction over Jewish marriage and divorce in Israel. While Bakshi-Doron adopted a position associated with secular activists and Israel�s small Reform and Conservative movements, he gave halakhic arguments for challenging a key prerogative of the rabbinate he had headed for a decade. More...

Israel: Looking for Outside Assistance?
Palestinian terror groups have generally rebuffed efforts by international jihad networks led by Al-Qaeda to enter the local arena. Will a weakened Hamas now seek new strength in such alliances? More...

The Back Page with Mohamed Sid-Ahmed: 'A Great Opportunity Has Been Missed'
When the Knesset commemorated the 25th anniversary of the peace treaty with Egypt on March 24, there were no parallel ceremonies in Cairo. The only Egyptian gesture of recognition -- sending a parliamentary delegation to participate in the festive Knesset session -- was canceled to protest the assassination of Hamas leader Sheik Ahmad Yassin two days earlier. More...

The Back Page: 'We forecast 10,000 killed -- in the best-case scenario'
The earthquake that shook Israel on February 11 (5.2 on the Richter scale) was another reminder that the country is located on two feisty seismic faults: one running the length of the country through the Jordan Rift Valley (part of the Syro-African fault) and a smaller one cutting through the Jezreel Valley in the north (the Yagur fault). Statistics show that a major tremor (6 or over on the Richter scale) occurs along the Syro-African fault approximately once every century; the last, in 1927, killed up to 500 people in mandatory Palestine -- which then had a tenth the population of Israel and the territories today. Yet Israel has done almost nothing to protect itself -- physically and economically -- against the threat of a major tremor. More...

The Back Page: �I�d pack the courtroom with as many Muslim clerics as possible�
Given today�s global media appetite and capability, Saddam�s trial -- whoever conducts it and whenever it happens -- promises to be a spectacular legal show. Benjamin B. Ferencz, 83, one of the lead American prosecutors at the post-World War II Nuremberg trials of high-ranking Nazi officials, sees this as a potentially positive development, although he warns media coverage is likely to be superficial, dwelling on sensational revelations rather than the trial�s deeper legal significance. More...

The Back Page: �If Young People Don�t Do It, No One Will�
On December 1, Israel marked the 30th anniversary of the death of David Ben-Gurion, its founding father and first prime minister. The event sparked renewed discussion of what is considered his last will and testament: the largely unanswered call to settle the Negev. Populating the south, Ben-Gurion wrote, is Israel�s "existential need, and an economic and security imperative." More...

The Back Page: Nanotechnology -- Israel�s tiny new growth industry
Positive forecasts on major issues like peace, security or the economy are few and far between in Israel these days, but there�s tremendous optimism in one small area -- one very, very small area. Nanotechnology, a science that involves manipulating particles as small as the size of a few molecules, is a rapidly developing field worldwide, and Israel is at the forefront. This was demonstrated most recently in mid-November, when nanoscientists at the Technion in Haifa announced that they had used DNA molecules to develop a way to make a tiny transistor that can replicate itself. This opens the way for production of electronic devices that could conceivably assemble themselves -- with potentially dramatic consequences in increasing computer speeds, creating health care applications and manufacturing nanoscale electronics. More...

The Back Page: �A Social Code of Discourse Doesn�t Exist in Israel�
The potential for another crime similar to the Rabin assassination is clear and present, says Talia Sasson, head of a State Prosecution team dealing with ideological crimes involving the Shin Bet, the army and the police. Speaking in early November, close to the eighth anniversary of the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, Sasson asserts that the recent conviction of three Jewish men for attempting to place a bomb outside an East Jerusalem girls� school is "no different from Arab terror."Having headed the interdepartmental body for seven years, Sasson says that stopping incitement to political and racist violence is not solely the job of law enforcement. She points to the absence of a social code of what is permissible to say and what is not, and regrets the fact that public figures like rabbis and Knesset members, who she says should be leading the fight against incitement, often use the most inflammatory language.Sasson is acutely aware of the dangers of the current atmosphere of incitement. This will become worse, she fears, if serious talks with the Palestinians resume. More...

The Back Page: �After a Few Seconds, the Garbage Can Blew Up�
The first IDF soldiers to be drafted after the beginning of the Al-Aqsa intifada are being discharged from the army this month, at the end of three years of service. They were inducted in November 2000, after the first month of intifada violence, which included deadly clashes between Israeli Arabs and police, and bloodshed in the West Bank and Gaza. The plague of suicide bombings was only beginning. Ehud Barak was prime minister, his government was still negotiating with Yasser Arafat, and the army was not deployed inside major West Bank cities. More...

Viewpoint/Amiel Ungar: Step on It, Arik
There is a change in the air and it is not merely the advent of autumn. Americans for Peace Now placed an ad in the pre-Rosh Hashanah issue of The Jerusalem Report resembling a Monopoly board and urging us to play the "Give Peace a Chance" card again. A year ago the advertisement would have elicited an appropriate reply. Peace Now would have been awarded the dreaded "repairs assessment" card from the Chance deck. Repairs and amends were definitely in order for over 1,000 Israeli lives lost, myriads rendered jobless and an economy wrecked as a result of the Oslo fantasy. It is equally doubtful that the "rebellion" of the (predominately inactive) pilots would have been treated semi-seriously a while ago. In the selling of Oslo and Camp David, not to mention the ignominious flight from Lebanon, the left provided a stock assurance to the argument over what would happen if the withdrawal for peace vision turned sour. In such an eventuality, parried the left, Israel�s vastly superior military power (i.e., the air force) would be unleashed and wreak havoc. Massive collateral damage would have been the initial objective, rather than a regretted consequence, of sorties. We did not hear the slightest protest from moralistic pilots and their backers in the media over the inescapable logic of such a strategy. More...

The Back Page: It Wasn't Theft. It Was Reparations
One morning in late summer, the entire Jewish people woke up to find that the Biblical past had sprung to life in a most unexpected fashion: The descendants of the Children of Israel had been slapped with a massive lawsuit for property taken by their forefathers when they left Egypt under God�s "mighty hand and outstretched arm" 3,300 years ago. Nabil Hilmi, dean of the law school at Egypt�s University of Al-Zaqaziq, and Gamil Yaken, also a law professor and a prominent personage in the Egyptian community of Switzerland, announced that they were planning to sue "all the Jews of the world" for trillions of dollars, the cost of the "gold and silver and clothing" (Exodus 12:35) that the Hebrews took when leaving Egypt in the exodus. More...

Middle East: Anything But Shame
When parliament rejected King Abdullah�s attempt to toughen up the laws against honor killings, there was little protest from the local women, let alone the men More...

The Back Page: Fight the Hard-Drug Dealers, Not the Pot Smokers
A bill that would dramatically reform Israel�s drug laws will be submitted by Knesset Member Roman Bronfman of Meretz when the legislature returns from recess on October 19. It would decriminalize possession of marijuana for personal use, replacing laws that now allow for a maximum penalty of three years in jail and a fine of up to NIS 109,000 for possession of up to 15 grams of the drug. Bronfman hopes that this would free up resources that could be redirected to rooting out hard-drug use, with the focus on dealers, and to educate the public on the dangers of drug use. More...

Middle East: No Hero�s Welcome
In an exclusive account from Baghdad, Heidi Kingstone details the surreal homecoming of the longtime exiles who had hoped to succeed Saddam More...

The Back Page: �Rabin was talking about an idea; today we�re dealing with substance�
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The Back Page: �We are not connecting effectively with young Jews�
American pollster Frank Luntz recently released an eye-opening report entitled "Israel in the Age of Eminem," whose findings are addressed to the American Jewish establishment. Its deeply disturbing conclusion is that a whopping 80 percent of American university-age Jews are essentially alienated from both the American Jewish community and Israel. They shun organizations designed to serve Jewish youth because the latter are not regarded as "cool." "We are not connecting effectively with young Jews," Luntz warns. Worse yet, "the messages, messengers, and mechanisms we are using for our advocacy and fundraising campaigns may even be turning them off." More...

The Back Page: �What is troubling is the erosion of support for democracy in public opinion�
The Palestinian intifada is hurting not only the Israeli economy, but the very fabric of Israeli democracy, says Prof. Asher Arian, a political scientist at Haifa University and the Israel Democracy Institute. The past four years have seen a serious erosion in the overall quality of Israeli democracy and a strengthening of anti-democratic attitudes, according to a recently published study by Arian and three other IDI researchers, Prof. David Nachmias, Daniel Shani and Doron Navot. Only 77 percent of Jewish Israelis, for example, think democracy is the best form of government, as opposed to 90 percent in 1999. More than half of the Jewish population, 53 percent, are openly against full equality for the country�s Arab minority, and a full 57 percent think the Arabs should be encouraged to emigrate. More...

Middle East: Made in Britain
After the Tel Aviv suicide bombing carried out by two British Muslims, U.K. Muslim and Jewish representatives call for dialogue before it�s too late More...

Backpage: Iraq-Israel relations could �be the best�
Baghdad-born Iraq maven David Sasson on Israel�s mistakes in pre-Saddam Iraq and the opportunities that beckon now More...

Middle East: Mission: Coming Home
At the headquarters of the U.S.-backed Free Iraqi Forces deep in the Hungarian countryside, Iraqi exiles train for the day after Saddam More...

Middle East: Trouble in the House of Saud
Could Saudi Arabia�s have-nots spark a revolution? More...

Middle East: The Kiss of Life?
Many Egyptians hope that Gamal, the sonof President Hosni Mubarak, is indeed being groomed to take over More...

Iraq Special Report - Edging Towards War: The Comfort of Saddam
How one Jerusalem family lost a son to the intifadaand got a check from Baghdad More...

The Changing Colors of Imad Mughniyah
After years in the shadows, one of the world�s most wanted terror chiefs may be reemerging in a more deadly form than ever. More...

Iraq�s �Northern Alliance�?
Washington remains ambivalent toward the Iraqi National Congress, though the opposition in exile claims to be ready to get rid of Saddam More...

The Other Iraq
In the safe haven of Iraqi Kurdistan, the Jews and Israel are remembered fondly,if increasingly vaguely. More...

Radical Roots
Egypt looks inward to examine why it has spawned so many Islamic militants, including some of Osama Bin Laden's top lieutenants More...

Defending Sharon
Irit Kohn, a key member of the Israeli team working on Ariel Sharon's defense against the war crimes investigation in Belgium, says she'd like to meet Chibli Mallat, the Lebanese lead attorney for the Sabra and Shatilla survivors who are suing the prime minister, "to explain to him a little about the history of Israel." More...

Caught in the Closet
Egypt�s gay community and the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood have one thing in common -- state security court trials. In mid-August, 52 Egyptian men suspected of homosexuality were scheduled to file back into a Cairo courtroom for the second session of a trial that is arousing strong emotions in Egypt. The case is likely to drag on for months, but the first few sensational weeks have already set local commentators surmising about the reasons behind the police�s virulent anti-gay campaign. More...

From Beirut to Bethlehem
The metamorphosis of Manger Square underlines the havoc wreaked by the intifada in the �cradle of Christianity� More...

Sibling Rivalry, Baghdad Style
With Saddam's two oldest sons vying for power, things could get ugly in the event of the Iraqi ruler's demise More...

Beyond Salvation?
(September 11, 2000) The political and military decline of Lebanon's Christian community leaves many of its members wondering if it has any future at all More...

A Catalogue of Missed Opportunities
(July 3, 2000) A sample of our extensive coverage in the current issue about the death of Syrian President Hafiz al-Asad. More...

Hizballahstan
(June 19, 2000) From the ramparts of the castle of Beaufort all the way to the Mediterranean shore, the majority of the territory that was once known as Fatahland, and that later became the Israeli-controlled security zone, has now turned into Hizballahstan. More...

The Al-Jazeera Revolution
(March 27, 2000) Qatar has discovered a new commodity more precious than its gas and oil - power-generating satellite TV More...

The Refugee Time Bomb
(February 14, 2000) To the consternation of their reluctant hosts, Palestinians in Lebanon are becoming increasingly involved in violent crime and fundamentalist terror More...

Still Waters on the Nile
(November 8, 1999) President Mubarak has quickly put to rest recent rumors of political change during his new term in office - including the idea of launching his son, Gamal, into politics. More...

Egypt�s Promised Lands
(July 19, 1999) While millions of Egyptians are living in slums, the government is pinning its hopes on a luxury housing boom to help ease the crippling urban crush More...